


Broken

by Wasthatapun



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:37:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasthatapun/pseuds/Wasthatapun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Jon has a case of hiccups and reality suffers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

-HIC-

The small sound jolted the brass bots frame and made him let out another little groan.

He hated hiccups.

Why was he the only one who ever got them?

The Spine never got hiccups, and neither did Rabbit even with all his glitches.

It wasn’t fair.

-HIC-

His bellows contracted partway in another pass of corrupt code and The Jon huffed out a little puff of steam. He’d have to track down Michael if he wanted them to go away but he wasn’t sure where the one-man-band had gotten off to.

He pouted as he made his way along the hallway, kicking at the carpet as he went as more tremors shook his tiny frame.

-HIC-

He found The Spine first, in one of the studies with a book open in his lap.

The Jon sulked into the room and flopped onto the foot rest in a pitiful heap, his hat tumbling off his head and rolling across the floor to come to a stop on The Spine’s shoe.

The Spine eyed his brother for a moment. “Is something wrong, The Jon?”

“SSSSSPPPPPIIII-HIC-IIINNNNNEEEEE.”

He sighed and put his book aside. The Jon and hiccups never ever ended well for anyone.

He picked up The Jon’s hat and gave it a quick dusting off before pulling the pitifully whining bot onto his feet and placing it back in its rightful place.

“Come on The Jon, let’s go find Michael.”

The Jon gave a hopeful smile and wiggled a little in happiness.

-HIC-

This time, the jerk of his bellows caused by the string of corrupt code did more than just jolt his little brass body, the jolt went deeper, down to his very core. The Koi gave an aggravated swish of its tail and a ripple passed through reality.

The Spine groaned, because suddenly his clothes had vanished and his torso now started at a horse’s withers and stretched back into a mechanical equine rump.

“Let’s find Michael very, VERY, quickly.”

The Spine really hated when The Jon got the hiccups.

-HIC-

He gave an aggravated flick of his titanium alloy tail as his hooves made little clip-clip-clip sounds on the hardwood. The Jon had taken all of six seconds to demand he get to ride and now lay splayed across The Spines flank.

He was so miserable from his hiccups The Spine hadn’t had the heart to refuse him.

In between ‘hics’ The Jon was humming horse adventure to himself quietly.

It was always weird seeing The Jon so depressed and demure when usually he was a ball of joyous energy bouncing off every available surface.

The first few chords of Rabbits melodica reached the silver bot even before they turned the corner and found him settled in a window seat, happily practicing his part of Juju Magic.

The clockwork automaton gave a start and coughed on his mouthpiece when he looked up and was met with the scene of his four-legged equine brother and a depressed The Jon.

“What in the….” he muttered

“The Jon’s got hiccup’s, we’re trying to find Michael.” The Spine explained.

Rabbit blinked slowly at him “oh” dropped the melodica and attempted to make a run for it.

Attempted being the key word

-HIC-

Another ripple passed through reality.

Rabbit flinched and screwed his eyes shut, unwilling to witness whatever knew oddity The Jon’s hiccups had caused.

The Spine couldn’t hold back a triumphant laugh. “Guess now you have to help us out.” he snickered.

Slowly, Rabbit unscrewed his optics and looked down at himself.

“OH COME ON!!”

Everything he was wearing, everything had inverted its colors. Black had become white, red a bright eye-searing blue, not even his goggles had escaped the transformation.

“Sorry Rabbit.” The Jon muttered pitifully, trying to hide while still remaining spread across The Spines back.

Rabbit sighed; cringing as he realized even his steam had inverted and was now a murky black. “It’s fine Tha Jon, not like it’s your fault. Let’s go find Michael so everything can get put back to normal okay?”

The Jon hiccupped again but nodded, muttering something about ‘stupid broken code’.

-HIC-

Michael was not in the garage, his usual haunt when not gallivanting around the manor with The Jon. 

Steve, however, was giving the wayward engineer a hand by watching one of his purple-matter experiments in its final stages of shut down.

His dreads were the first to notice them; the thin dragons chittered amongst themselves at the spectacle before Steve turned to see it for himself.

“I like the new look guys,” He snorted, a few of his dreads giggling as well “What’s up with The Jon?”

Rabbit ran a hand through The Jon’s copper curls, trying to calm him as the hiccups grew more turbulent. “Tha Jon’s got a BA-BA-bad case of the hiccup’s, you seen Michael?”

“More importantly, have any of you seen my bowler?” Sam had entered behind them and was leaning on the door frame. “Last I saw The Jon was using it as a boat for his toy animals.”

Another violent hiccup came from the bot in question, but thankfully reality stayed in place.

The Jon gave a tiny groan and tried unsuccessfully to bury his head into the crook of The Spines back, muttering something about it possibly still being in the library.

Sam’s brow furrowed, he’d never seen The Jon like this. 

Steve had moved from his seat and was rubbing The Jon’s back to try and comfort him. Even his dragon dreads were settling and cooing with worry.

-HIC-

The ripple swelled outward and Steve let out a yelp as the ground rushed up toward him and The Spine suddenly seemed even more ridiculously high above him.

Rabbit bit his lip to keep from laughing; his unexpected wardrobe change suddenly didn’t seem so bad now that he was faced with a six-inch Steve who did not look at all pleased with his current predicament.

Although he seemed considerably less upset by the sudden change in size as he was by the fact that his hair, a tangle of dragons camouflaged as dreadlocks for a good many months now, had returned to being ordinary hair.

“NOOO! My babies! Where’d my babies go!” he cried as he pulled his hair forward and inspected the limp dreads.

The Spine reached down, careful not to dismount The Jon as he knelt onto his forelegs, and gently scooped the tiny Steve into his hand.

“We just have to find Michael, he’ll fix up The Jon and everything can go back to normal.” He reassured the six-inch-sound-tech.

“I think we saw him earlier with his banjo.” It wasn’t Sam who spoke though, but his mustache.

Sam crossed his eyes trying to see past his own nose and frowning. “Oh you have got to be kidding me!”

“Hey, you should be used to this kinda thing by now.” His mustache responded curtly. “Are we gonna go find Michael or what? I don’t like this any more than you do!”

The Spine really REALLY hated when The Jon got the hiccups.

-HIC-

They finally found Michael sitting comfortably on the back porch strumming absently at his banjo.

He couldn’t help but burst out in laughter when he saw the procession of misfortune that had sought him out.

His tune changed instantly when he saw just how miserable The Jon had been left this time around. Completely unwilling to move from his position slumped on the spines back, tiny Steve seated between his shoulder blades trying to comfort him, nearly being tossed off with each new hiccup.

“Man, the last time this happened and was this bad I was still in grade school.” The one-man-band muttered to himself as he looked The Jon over, giving him a quick hug as he helped the art-deco bot onto his feet.

“And what exactly is this, pray tell.” Sam’s mustache demanded. Sam nodding in agreement.

Michael swallowed another snicker as he lifted Steve off The Spines hindquarters and helped him to stand balanced on his open palm.

“Sometimes I forget you guys haven’t lived here as long as I have. The Jon has this bit of broken code we can’t get rid of so every now and then he gets the hiccups.”

He held Steve, who was still bemoaning the loss of his beloved pet dragons, up to face level so that he could talk eye to eye with both his friends.

“But when The Jon gets hiccups, reality has a habit of getting a bit broken, as you have witnessed.”

Another hiccup wracked his body and he let out a whine as yet another ripple passed through reality.

Michael glanced over his shoulder to find a pair of iridescent butterfly wings protruding from his back. He paused and gave them a quick flutter.

“See what I mean? Don’t worry, everything always goes back to normal once I’ve repaired the code.”

He handed Steve over to Rabbit, who promptly deposited him on the brim of his hat, before slinging The Jon’s arm over his shoulder to help him back to the garage for repairs.

“Hey check out my awesome wings The Jon.” He said trying to cheer his best friend up.

The Jon peeked over his shoulder and let out a weak “Yaaaa-HIC-aaayyy.”

It took less than a half hour for Michael to track down the corrupt code, with everything returning to normal soon after.

Though they both kind of regretted Michael not having a chance to find out whether or not those fairy wings were strong enough to fly with.


End file.
